{"id":1209077,"date":"2022-09-22T12:15:13","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T12:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/09\/22\/chelsea-sack-commercial-director-over-inappropriate-messages\/"},"modified":"2022-09-22T12:15:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T12:15:13","slug":"chelsea-sack-commercial-director-over-inappropriate-messages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/09\/22\/chelsea-sack-commercial-director-over-inappropriate-messages\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea sack commercial director over &#8216;inappropriate messages&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/126797895_c063eb06-bd5f-4840-a701-76df8486e729-696x392.jpg\"   alt=\"\" title=\"_126797895_c063eb06-bd5f-4840-a701-76df8486e729\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Chelsea have sacked commercial director Damian Willoughby after he sent \u201cinappropriate messages\u201d to a female football finance agent.<\/p>\n<p>Willoughby sent improper messages to Catalina Kim before he joined the club last month.<\/p>\n<p>Kim was involved with a bid to buy the West London club in March.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/22191989129,1002554\/MGL\/mgl_ado_atunwa_300x250 --><\/p>\n<p>\u201cChelsea confirms that it has terminated commercial director Damian Willoughby\u2019s employment with immediate effect,\u201d a club spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvidence of inappropriate messages sent by Mr Willoughby, prior to his appointment at Chelsea FC earlier this month, has recently been provided to and investigated by the club.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile they were sent prior to his employment at the club, such behaviour runs absolutely counter to the workplace environment and corporate culture being established by the club\u2019s new ownership.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last month Willoughby began a second spell at Stamford Bridge following the club\u2019s takeover by an investment group led by businessman Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital.<\/p>\n<p>Willoughby worked for Chelsea between 2007 and 2010 \u2013 and has also worked for Manchester City and EA Sports. But he has been sacked less than a month into the role.<\/p>\n<p>The Telegraph,\u00a0which first reported the story, said that Kim highlighted the messages to Chelsea\u2019s head of business, Tim Glick, who hired Willoughby.<\/p>\n<p>Kim\u2019s firm C&#038;P Sports Group were involved in British property owner Nick Candy\u2019s bid to buy the club after it was\u00a0put up for sale by former owner Roman Abramovich\u00a0earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>A Chelsea spokesperson added: \u201cThe club\u2019s owners are working tirelessly to set and achieve the highest standards both on and off the pitch, and are determined to establish and nurture a culture of transparency, accountability, inclusivity, diversity and opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe club is committed to creating an environment which embodies these values.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"kFJIdDq-ScA\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Suspected M\u00fcrder: Chief who allegedly killed, buried 22-year-old nursing trainee nabbed (21-9-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kFJIdDq-ScA?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea have sacked commercial director Damian Willoughby after he sent \u201cinappropriate messages\u201d to a female football finance agent. Willoughby sent improper messages to Catalina Kim before he joined the club last month. Kim was involved with a bid to buy the West London club in March. \u201cChelsea confirms that it has terminated commercial director Damian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1209078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[58,558,1749,14866,8326,394],"class_list":["post-1209077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-chelsea","tag-commercial","tag-director","tag-inappropriate","tag-messages","tag-sack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1209077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1209077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1209077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1209077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}